d to it. Or did the nest-building
information come from God, and was there an evil one among the birds also
who taught them at any rate to steer clear of priggishness?

Think of the spider again--an ugly creature, but I suppose God likes it.
What a mean and odious lie is that web which naturalists extol as such a
marvel of ingenuity!

Once on a summer afternoon in a far country I met one of those orchids
who make it their business to imitate a fly with their petals. This lie
they dispose so cunningly that real flies, thinking the honey is being
already plundered, pass them without molesting them. Watching intently
and keeping very still, methought I heard this orchid speaking to the
offspring which she felt within her, though I saw them not. "My
children," she exclaimed, "I must soon leave you; think upon the fly, my
loved ones, for this is truth; cling to this great thought in your
passage through life, for it is the one thing needful; once lose sight of
it and you are lost!" Over and over again she sang this burden in a
small still voice, and so I left her. Then straightway I came upon some
butterflies whose profession it was to pretend to believe in all manner
of vital truths which in their inner practice they rejected; thus,
asserting themselves to be certain other and hateful butterflies which no
bird will eat by reason of their abominable smell, these cunning ones
conceal their own sweetness, and live long in the land and see good days.
No: lying is so deeply rooted in nature that we may expel it with a fork,
and yet it will always come back again: it is like the poor, we must have
it always with us. We must all eat a peck of moral dirt before we die.

All depends upon who it is that is lying. One man may steal a horse when
another may not look over a hedge. The good man who tells no lies
wittingly to himself and is never unkindly, may lie and lie and lie
whenever he chooses to other people, and he will not be false to any man:
his lies become truths as they pass into the hearers' ear. If a man
deceives himself and is unkind, the truth is not in him; it turns to
falsehood while yet in his mouth, like the quails in the Wilderness of
Sinai. How this is so or why, I know not, but that the Lord hath mercy
on whom He will have mercy and whom He willeth He hardeneth. My Italian
friends are doubtless in the main right about the priests, but there are
many exceptions, as they themselves gladly admit. For my